Week 2.9: Love

Week 2.9: Love was taken at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta Park. I went to the Balloon Fiesta with my family for an evening show that was supposed to include a balloon glow, but it went bust because of high winds. Nevertheless, a fun time was had by all and the fireworks show was pretty great. Plus, I got this sweet shot!! Yay.

So, lately, I've been thinking about love and what it actually, actually means. It's a rough gig. One of my favorite definitions comes from the great Missus who says, "Love is showing up all the time. It's actually: consistency." And even though there are a million different ways to "show" love, I think that definition is pretty great. Even though I don't always want to agree with it...or be Love.

Hearts in the sky...that's Hollywood love. That's inspirational. That's emotional. That's the fancy and feeling that Jane Austen pokes fun at with such great wit. It's fun. It's exciting. It fades almost as quickly as this week's photo did. Two second's later, and I wouldn't have been able to have taken Love. It was a fleeting, happenstance, wonderful moment.

Then there's actual Love. The everyday showing up when you just don't feel it. The times when someone is all prickles and spines and completely unappealing and you still give it 100%. The mundane. The totally exasperating. The silences. The frustrations. The words you wish you could take back or that you wish someone had never said to you. The feeling that you're going it alone when you are supposed to be on the same team.

Yes. I've had all that. And I'll take it again in an instant. Because I want to be the Love that keeps showing up when everyone else has taken their ball and gone home. I want to be the one that "bears it out even to the edge of doom." And I want that for everyone who touches my life, not just for a man...so thank you, friends and family for helping me understand Love so much better than I ever could have on my own.

And a special thank you to my dear friend, The Sweet Georgia Peach, who told me today that on a scale of 1 to 10 of "Stalker Status" (1 being "Not So Great" to 10 being "Completely Awesome to Have You and I Want 5 More") that I'm a 12. I totally Stalker Love you!!

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

William Shakespeare